Antioxidant-Pregabalin May Cut Pain in Chronic Calcific Pancreatitis

HealthDay News -- For patients with chronic calcific pancreatitis (CCP), antioxidant-pregabalin combination is associated with significant pain reduction, according to a study published in the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

Rupjyoti Talukdar, MD, PhD, from the Asian Institute of Gastroenterology in Hyderabad, India, and colleagues examined the effect of antioxidant-pregabalin combination on pain recurrence in CCP. Patients with CCP with pain recurrence following pancreatic ductal clearance of stones were randomized to receive antioxidant-pregabalin combination (42 patients) or matching placebo (45 patients) for 2 months, followed by 4 months of open-label antioxidants in both groups. On a weekly basis and at the end of the study, a coordinator recorded compliance, daily pain, and adverse events.

The researchers found that at 2 months there was significant improvement in the treatment group, with reductions in visual analog scale (P = 0.01), Izbicki score (P = 0.001), complete pain resolution (P = 0.04), and number of painful days (P = 0.01). The number of patients needed to treat was 4.8. In the original treatment group, pain reduction persisted at 6 months. In the treatment arm, 23.8 and 38.1% of patients experienced mild to moderate self-limiting nausea/vomiting and drowsiness, respectively; no change was required in the study protocol.

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